CFP: Cultural Representations of Masculinities

Appel à soumission d’articles pour publication dans la revue RANAM. Tous les articles seront évalués en double aveugle.

Call for Papers for Upcoming Publication in RANAM: Cultural Representations of Masculinities: Models and Counter-Models in the English-Speaking World

In the words of Judith Butler, gender is “instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts” (140, author’s emphasis). In her foundational work Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Butler focuses mostly on gender performance and femininity, though the concept is applied to both sides of the socially constructed binary. Anticipating Butler’s theorization of the importance of performance within the social existence of gender, literary critic Nancy Armstrong emphasizes the link between cultural representations of gender in literary texts. For Armstrong, fiction functions “both as the document and as the agency of cultural history” (23). Following this assessment, this volume seeks to analyze cultural representations of masculinities, working under the assumption that cultural artifacts, including but not limited to fiction, are “a matter of meaning: not meanings as free-floating ideas or as ideals embodied in texts but as part of lived experience, shaping social practice,”in a cultural studies approach (Hall 40). 

Such studies on the constructed nature and varying definitions of different ideals of femininity alongside transgressions of these models through cultural objects have been increasingly common since the advent of feminist criticism in the 1970s, and we are looking to shift the focus to cultural representations of masculinities. Such a focus was marginally undertaken in the same time period, underlining the relational nature of the concepts of masculinity and femininity (Connell 28, 43). However, although hegemonic masculinity plays a central role in setting up an oppositional binary with the subordinately-constructed concept of femininity (the perpetual ‘other’?) – thus enforcing patriarchal power relations – it also defines itself against a range of subordinate or non-hegemonic masculinities, which often intersect with other considerations/categories/identities such as race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation. (Val de Almeida, 2000). The dynamics between hegemonic models of masculinity, counter-models of masculinity and models of femininity vary according to the historical period and cultural context, and warrant further study. Masculinities studies is a growing field of inquiry, to which this study day aims to contribute. Papers from all geographical areas within the English-speaking world are welcome, across all time periods. Given that conceptions of masculinity are “inherently historical,” prone to change according to the shifts in the “conditions for the defence of patriarchy,” we are particularly interested in tracing a wide range of masculinities, and their relation to their hegemonic manifestation within their specific contexts (Connell 43, 77). 

We invite papers especially on, but not limited to, the following topics: 

. Representations of masculinity/ies in literature, the media and creative industries (music, cinema, tv series, visual arts, performance arts…)

. History/ies and geography/ies of masculinity/ies

. Masculinity/ies in sports, education, …

. Performing masculinity/ies, gender bending, queer masculinities

. Hegemonic and non-hegemonic / ‘subordinate’ masculinities

. Ecomasculinities, Postcolonial masculinities, …

. Masculinity/ies and the body 

Paper proposals (300 words, in English or in French), along with a short biography and 5 or 6 keywords, should be sent to chloe.bour-lang4@etu.unistra.fr, t.heron@unistra.fr, and jmisset@unistra.fr by March, 17th 2024. 

Final papers should not be longer than 7500 words and are expected by September, 1st 2024. Papers should be written either in French or in English.

RANAM (Recherches Anglaises et Nord-AMéricaines) is an international, scholarly journal. It was founded in 1967 and has published one volume a year uninterruptedly ever since. RANAM publishes papers on topics related to the culture and the language of the English-speaking world (literature, social and political history, fine arts, philosophy, linguistics…) and has opted for an interdisciplinary approach. RANAM operates with a double-blind peer review policy. http://pus.unistra.fr/fr/revues/ranam/ 

Bibliography

Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, London: Routledge, 1990.

Connell, Raewyn W. Masculinities. University of California Press, 1995.

Cenamor, Rubén and Stefan L. Brandt. (eds) Ecomasculinities: Negotiating Male Gender Identity in U.S. Fiction. Lexington Books, 2019.

Hall, Stuart. Essential Essays: Foundations of Cultural Studies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.

Kabesh, Amal Treacher. Postcolonial Masculinities Emotions, Histories and Ethics. Routledge, 2013.

Kimmel, Michael. The History of Men: Essays on American and British Masculinities. SUNY Press, 2005. 

—. Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era. Nation Books, 2013.

Kitossa, Tamari (ed.) Appealing because He Is Appalling: Black Masculinites, Colonialism, and Erotic Racism. University of Alberta Press, 2021.

Landreau, John and Nelson Rodriguez. Queer Masculinities: A Critical Reader in Education. Springer Science and Business, 2011.

Pulé, Paul M. and Martin Hultmann. (eds) Men, Masculinities, and Earth: Contending with the (m)Anthropocene. Palgrave Millan, 2021

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